John Paterno Mixing Steve Gadd Band
02h 02min
(51)
Watch as Grammy-winning engineer John Paterno mixes Steve Gadd Band's track Green Foam from scratch. Being both the recording and mixing engineer on this project, John shares his insights on the tracking process and how to add more color and energy in the mix.
In this 2 hour tutorial, John teaches you how to creatively bring an instrumental blues song to life with a very thoughtful and deliberate mix. The beauty of this song is its simplicity, it's 5 of LA's best session players jamming out in a basement studio.
See how he works step by step and shows you how to:
- Create a musical, intelligible and unique sounding mix with some of the best musicians in the world
- Check and correct phase between drum mics then finding the balance for a natural sounding drum kit
- Enhance the tone and musical qualities of the bass
- Give space and life to the guitars and keyboards
- Make space for each instrument to be heard clearly in the mix
- Add just the right amount of compression and Eq to a jazz mix that thrives on dynamics
- Mentally balance between the best qualities and vibe of the rough mix and the freedom to sonically explore during the mixing process without getting lost in the possibilities
This is your chance to see how a professional mixing engineer uses his experience and taste to create a great and modern sounding jazz mix.
The best part is that you can also download the partial stems for the song and mix it for yourself. Put your skills to the test and apply some of your new found techniques.
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Once logged in, you will be able to click on those chapter titles and jump around in the video.
- 00:00 - Start
- 00:38 - Rough Mix
- 02:19 - About The Recording
- 03:07 - Checking Out The Tracks
- 06:58 - Setup Stereo Bus Path
- 08:57 - Grouping Tracks Together
- 10:01 - Pushing Up The Faders
- 11:20 - Checking Drum Phase
- 17:03 - Setting Levels and Metering
- 20:52 - Setup Stereo Bus Chain
- 23:01 - Bring In The Bass
- 27:09 - Mixing The Drums
- 38:46 - Mixing Guitars
- 42:34 - Mixing The Wurlitzer
- 48:20 - Reverb - Creating Space
- 54:27 - Check The 2 Bus
- 56:22 - Mixing Trumpet
- 00:00 - Start
- 00:0 - Reference - Checking The Rough Mix
- 09:13 - Re-Balance The Mix
- 10:55 - Trumpet EQ
- 16:21 - Mixing The B3 Organ
- 27:14 - Reverb - Playing With Space
- 33:03 - Mixing Toms
- 37:57 - Check The 2 Bus Levels
- 46:27 - Clip Gain - Adjusting Levels
- 50:00 - Guitar Overdubs
- 54:47 - Automation
- 58:22 - Print The Final Mix
| Part 1 | Part 2 |
00:00:08
Bongiorno amico! John Paterno here.
00:00:11
We're gonna do a song called
"Green Foam" today,
by the Steve Gadd Band.
00:00:15
Steve Gadd – world renowned drummer –
has played with Steely Dan,
Rickie Lee Jones...
He's had that band stuff in the 70s.
00:00:23
He currently plays with James Taylor.
He has played with Eric Clapton...
00:00:27
You've heard Steve Gadd's playing.
00:00:29
Also, we have Jimmy Johnson on bass,
Michael Landau on guitar,
Larry Goldings on keyboards,
and Walt Fowler is playing trumpet.
00:00:36
Now let me run it for you. Check it out.
00:02:19
This tune was tracked
at Mike Landau's studio,
through an API Legacy.
00:02:26
Everything was basically
recorded live on the day.
00:02:28
We had a couple of overdubs.
00:02:30
This particular tune
was written on the day.
00:02:33
The name "Green Foam" comes from
the foam that we stuffed
in Steve Gadd's bass drum,
to dampen it for this tune.
00:02:39
What you just heard was
the rough mix that I did
after we cut the tracks
and did any of the fixes
and the overdubs we needed to do.
00:02:46
It's important for me
to have a rough mix,
even if it's something
that I've already recorded,
only because, sometimes time goes by,
and you want to be able
to refer back to that thing
that everybody was happy with
and everybody was vibing on.
00:02:58
So especially if you start getting lost
into the nuts and bolts
of the relationship between everything,
it's nice to always get that
looking at the forest, as opposed to
being stuck inside the leaves.
00:03:07
My next step is to check out the tracks
to see what I have to deal with,
figure out how they all interrelate.
Let's take a look at the session.
00:03:14
It's set up already
how I normally lay things out,
because I've tracked it.
00:03:19
I usually always have the bass
up at the top, and then the drums,
and then the guitar,
and then... keyboards,
and then, in this particular case,
I actually stuck the trumpet
up a little bit higher,
as the melody line,
right after the drums.
00:03:36
No particular reason.
I think I just did it
because that was laid out
on the console that way
when we were doing the tracking.
00:03:43
So checking it out,
we just did a bass DI.
00:03:45
Jimmy Johnson has this Alembic bass
that he plays, that sounds fantastic.
00:03:49
We only did a DI on that.
We have a kick drum,
and a snare drum.
00:03:54
Kick was a D112.
00:03:56
In this particular case,
I didn't stuff it into the hole.
00:03:58
I actually left it out a little bit.
00:04:00
I wanted to get the feel
of the overall kit
and I didn't want it to feel
like a pop record,
where everything needs to be
in your face and aggressive.
00:04:08
This way, everything
kind of breathes a little bit more.
00:04:10
Snare drum – I think – was a Heil PR 20,
which I kind of like on snares.
00:04:15
Next track down is a hi-hat overdub,
which we'll get to at some point.
00:04:19
We have a couple of toms here,
Toms Mid, Low, and High,
they're labelled.
00:04:25
If you look at the toms, it looks like
he didn't hit them very much.
00:04:28
We used 421s on the toms.
00:04:30
Next, we have a pair of overheads.
00:04:32
For this, I actually used
a SoundField microphone.
00:04:37
This is that 4-capsule microphone
that has a processor on it,
that allows you to literally
steer the microphone,
allows you to get closer or farther away.
00:04:45
It even has an element of height
that you can control.
00:04:48
I love this microphone.
I use it a lot on string dates.
00:04:50
I love it on drum overheads,
especially when the goal is
to kind of get the feel of the whole kit.
00:04:56
Then we have a hi-hat track.
00:04:58
Hi-hat was a Violet microphone
called The Finger.
00:05:02
It looks like this really cool
60's space age thing.
00:05:06
Next I have a track called "441."
441 is actually
my little homage to Tchad Blake,
who was my mentor coming up.
00:05:14
He always had this mono mic
in front of the kit.
00:05:18
In this case, I actually used an AKG D19.
00:05:21
But I always call the track "441",
so it always makes me remember
kind of where I came from.
00:05:26
You know, I did learn a lot from Tchad,
so this is my little thing.
00:05:29
This mic, tune to tune,
got placed in various places.
00:05:33
Sometimes I stick it up in the air,
sometimes I stick it
right in where the snare is,
sometimes
it sits off to the side a little bit.
00:05:40
I probably had this pretty close
on this track, because of the groove.
00:05:43
Next, we've got Trumpet,
and this was Walt Fowler.
00:05:47
This was a Royer tube mic.
Mike happened to have one,
I have never used it before,
it sounded brilliant on the trumpet.
00:05:53
Guitars. We have a Guitar amp,
and we have a Guitar Delay.
00:05:58
Both amps were basically
right next to each other.
00:06:00
Really straight up. 57s on each,
through API-style mic pre's.
00:06:04
With Mike, it's all about
the tone in his hands.
00:06:06
It speaks for itself, you'll hear it
once we put the faders up.
00:06:09
We have a couple of extra
overdub tracks here,
into that little kind of
"freak-out" section
that we heard at the end of
the rough mix clip that I played you.
00:06:17
And then we have
another guitar overdub at the end.
00:06:21
We've got a Wurlitzer track,
which is Larry doing his thing
on a Wurlitzer DI.
00:06:26
And then we have a stereo B3 track.
00:06:29
Some people will put 3 mics on the B3,
and some people will record
all 3 mics separately.
00:06:34
I most of the time prefer
2 mics on the B3.
00:06:37
I find I get enough low end,
I don't need to have
to deal with the extra stuff.
00:06:42
They were literally just placed
on either side of the organ,
and I think they were even
mismatched microphones.
00:06:48
I think I had an M 808 on one side,
and I think I had a Shure microphone
on the other side,
the small diaphragm condenser
whose name escapes me at the moment.
00:06:56
That's basically our track layout.
00:07:00
The next thing I want to do is
set up my stereo bus path.
00:07:03
As you can see, I've got everything
labelled "stereo buss" already,
and what I've done in my I/O Setup,
I've called one of the bus paths –
instead of it being Bus 1-2,
I've called it "stereo buss,"
"ss", or "s",
you choose how you want to spell it.
00:07:19
It doesn't matter to me,
we're talking about the same thing.
00:07:21
Then what we're going to do
is we're going to set up
a Stereo Aux track.
00:07:26
This Stereo Aux track we are going to
put it out on Main outputs,
which are 1 and 2.
00:07:32
We are going to assign the input
to "stereo buss."
Now all of my tracks are gonna funnel
to the "stereo buss" track.
00:07:40
We're gonna solo safe it.
00:07:41
This will allow me processing,
and it will allow me post-fader fade out,
which you don't get when you use
the Pro Tools Master Fader,
which is basically a trim fader,
and we'll get to that in a minute.
00:07:53
The other thing I'm gonna do
while I'm here is
I'm also gonna set up a Master Fader,
as I said, also known to me
as a Trim fader.
00:08:02
Because what this is gonna do –
I'm gonna assign it to the "stereo buss" –
and what this is gonna do is
it's gonna give me a gain stage,
right before the Stereo bus.
00:08:13
So if I find things are getting
too out of hand
one way or the other,
I have some control.
00:08:18
We're gonna call this fader
"stereo bus trim."
Then we're gonna add one more fader.
00:08:24
It's just gonna be a Stereo Master Fader.
00:08:26
We're gonna pop this right up at the top.
00:08:29
We're gonna leave this assigned to 1-2.
00:08:31
And then, I'm gonna put a meter.
00:08:33
We're going to use the Blue Cat meter
in this particular case.
00:08:38
I have a preset
that I like to start with.
00:08:41
I am using the Bob Katz's K-14 scale.
00:08:45
I have chosen this
after fooling around a bunch
with different meters
and different options,
and I really like the K scale concept.
00:08:53
It gives me a nice area to shoot for,
and it gives me a lot of visual feedback.
00:08:58
I'm gonna create a VCA for the drums.
00:09:03
Then I'm gonna group these drums
so that I can assign them to the VCA.
00:09:15
And now, VCA 1,
we assign this to group Drums,
and then I'm gonna title this
"VCA Drums."
Next...
00:09:27
I'm gonna go ahead and group the B3 too,
because I'm sure that's where
it'll end up.
00:09:32
I call it "B3."
I've got the Master Fader going
with my meter.
00:09:38
I've got my "stereo buss" going.
00:09:41
We're gonna mute our rough mix.
00:09:43
Notice that my rough mix
is assigned to output 1-2.
00:09:46
Also my "stereo buss" for my mix
is assigned to output 1-2.
00:09:50
What this allows me to do is
it allows me to compare my mix
and the rough mix,
without my rough mix going through
my "stereo buss" processing,
which we don't want to have happen.
00:10:00
We want to be able to go back and forth
between what we had,
and where we are right now.
00:10:05
Otherwise, we're getting false readings,
and it just gets ugly.
00:10:08
The next thing I'm gonna do is
start pushing up some faders.
00:10:11
I'm gonna run it a little bit,
and we'll start looking at
a couple of the relationships
between the drums.
00:10:38
You noticed a guitar bleed
in the left-hand side.
00:10:41
I wanted to point that out,
because we have the guitar amps
baffled off in the room,
next to the drums.
00:10:46
Does it matter? No! Because it's part of
the overall sound of the record.
00:10:51
And it's part of the sound
of Mike's playing in the room.
00:10:55
We're not replacing Mike's part,
we're not gonna undo things,
and by the time
we get everything else in here,
you're not even gonna
really notice that it's there.
00:11:05
Let's continue to look at
some of these other tracks.
00:11:07
I'm gonna push up a few things
so you can hear them.
00:11:21
First thing I want to take a look at
though is the phase
and make sure that my overheads
and my kick and my snare
are in phase with each other.
00:11:29
We want to have the maximum amount
of depth that we can get,
and we want the kick and the snare
to sound true
when everything's blended together.
00:11:38
So what I've done is I've actually
put the overheads in mono.
00:11:42
This is a good way to test for phase.
00:11:45
If we put everything in mono,
if things are out of phase,
they're gonna feel like
they're receding into the track,
like they're gonna fall back a little bit.
If they're in phase,
they're gonna stick right where they are
when we blend the elements together.
00:11:57
First, I'm gonna listen to see
if I think it's in phase.
00:11:59
If I have a question,
I'm gonna pop an EQ on
and I'll just pop
the Phase button in and out
and see if I like it better
one way or the other.
00:12:05
I'm gonna push up the overheads first,
and use this as our reference.
00:12:09
And then I'll bring up the kick.
00:12:21
Just for illustration purposes,
I'm gonna pop an EQ on here.
00:12:25
It sounds right to me,
but I'm gonna pop an EQ
so you can hear the difference.
00:12:38
Hear how the sound goes away there?
It feels
a little more hollow, and distant.
00:12:42
That's how I know
I have the phase correct.
00:12:44
Because now that I've flopped it out
of phase, it's feeling more distant.
00:12:47
Sometimes creatively,
you may want to pop it out of phase
and it may work better.
But in this instance,
I'm gonna stick with what I've got.
00:12:53
Instead of adding more plug-ins,
all I'm gonna do now is
drag the same plug-in
down to the snare
and we'll do the same thing
with the snare.
00:13:23
I did a little extra soloing there,
because this one is
a little bit more ambiguous.
00:13:28
If it's not completely obvious
the first time,
the other thing I really listen for
is the sound of the original snare
on the mic,
versus the overheads.
00:13:38
If the tone changes drastically,
then I might go
for the flipped phase sound.
00:13:43
In this case, I still think that where
we are without the phase flip is good,
and that's where we're gonna stay.
00:13:50
Next thing we're gonna
look at is the toms.
00:13:52
I'm going to – just for the moment –
group these,
and we may end up
ungrouping them later.
00:13:57
Just for ease of illustration,
I'm gonna group them,
this way I can control them a little bit.
00:14:02
Now we're gonna listen to this solo'ed.
00:14:05
I'm just gonna see if he hits toms.
00:14:07
I'm gonna skip around to a few sections
and see what happens.
00:14:17
Alright! We have a tom hit.
00:14:19
Now I'm gonna go to
this other little section
that looks like it's a little busy.
00:14:30
That's pretty much snares.
00:14:32
I'm gonna expand out a little bit.
00:14:34
This looks like a tom hit
coming up right here.
00:14:46
Ok. So we have a couple of spots
where we can check.
00:14:49
Now I'm gonna start right here
with this high tom
and we're gonna do this phase check as well.
00:14:55
I am going to just solo the high tom
against the overheads.
00:15:05
And I'm gonna slide my test EQ in,
and see what the difference is.
00:15:23
So that one, to me,
sounds a little distant
when the phase button is out.
00:15:27
So I'm gonna leave this one in.
00:15:29
It's gonna give us more cut
when we have the whole mix done,
which is what we're going for.
00:15:34
I am now gonna scroll back
to that low tom that we heard
and we're gonna do the same thing.
00:15:39
I'm gonna make a note here
in my comments,
for phase.
00:15:43
This way, when I come back to it,
I'll remember that I have
to flip the phase on this track.
00:15:50
So now, listen to this low tom.
00:15:52
And we'll check the same thing.
00:15:54
We're gonna pop the phase out
of the EQ, and we're gonna listen.
00:16:11
Now if you noticed
when I pop the phase button in,
the pitch changes quite a bit
on the tom.
00:16:16
It actually sounds like
it's higher in pitch.
00:16:19
So now my question is:
what's the original tom sound like?
And I'm gonna go with whatever
the original tom sounds like.
00:16:26
We'll listen one more time real quick,
in and out of phase,
and then we'll listen to
the tom itself soloed.
00:16:40
I'm gonna mute the overheads.
00:16:43
And we're gonna listen to
the tom just on its own.
00:16:50
The source track sounds deep,
so I'm gonna go
with the original polarity.
00:16:55
Alright.
Next I'm gonna group the overheads
so that I have
a little bit more control over them.
00:17:01
I'm gonna back down these toms.
00:17:04
The other thing I'm gonna do right now
is I'm gonna up my meter.
00:17:07
And I'm gonna leave it open by hitting
this little red guy up here.
00:17:11
A lot of times, I work with two monitors,
this time we only have one,
so I believe I can shorten up
this meter so it doesn't take up
as much space.
00:17:20
We're gonna start pushing up the faders
and we're gonna just get a level going
that I think is appropriate
as a starting point.
00:17:58
We're gonna leave the toms down
at the moment.
00:18:01
What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna pan them
in the direction
that they should be panned.
00:18:07
Then I'm gonna raise them up
a little bit
and see if it's helping the entire sound
of the thing
to have these rumbling toms
through the track.
00:18:15
If not, then I'll just keep them down
and I'll only turn them on
when necessary.
00:18:20
Let's check that out.
00:18:44
At this point, they don't seem
to be doing a whole lot,
so I'm gonna leave them
on the lower side for the moment.
00:18:50
Once we get some other instruments in,
this may all change.
00:18:52
Let's get back to this meter thing
for a second,
because I made a point of opening it up
and telling you I'm leaving it open.
00:18:57
I'm gonna switch to the Large Size,
and I'm gonna slide it over.
00:19:01
And I want to tell you a little bit
about what I'm trying to go for.
00:19:03
On this meter, we have a Peak level,
and we have an RMS level.
00:19:07
My goal in using this meter is
to try to end up with my final mix
somewhere in this +4 to +6 range
in the RMS,
and with the Peak level, if it's not
peaking all the time,
close to all the time.
00:19:22
Now I've come to this
over a long time of studying records,
just basically loading things
into Pro Tools,
and just looking at the meters.
00:19:31
I find that tracks done
probably before 2000
are a little bit easier, because...
the modern records are so loud,
but that's a whole other topic
that we don't necessarily need
to get into right now.
00:19:42
By listening to a lot of things,
and by studying a lot of things,
you get a feel for
where stuff should sit.
00:19:48
I chose this particular meter,
because I really like the Katz scale.
00:19:52
I like the fact that we have
a range to shoot for
with this yellow light area,
from a visual perspective.
00:19:58
But what this means
from a technical perspective is that
with this meter scale – the K-14 –
I've got 14 dB of headroom
before I hit the brick wall.
00:20:08
Before I'm at maximum signal level.
00:20:11
This gives me an area to shoot for,
it gives me room for
a mastering engineer to do their thing,
so we're not completely
beating the snot out of the music.
00:20:21
We're not making bricks,
we're making music.
00:20:23
We have options here with this meter,
which is cool.
00:20:26
We can go to K-12.
00:20:28
What this does is it gives us
12 dB of headroom
from 0 to our maximum level point.
00:20:36
I tend to use this meter
if I'm doing stuff for broadcast
where it needs to be compressed,
and it needs to have little dynamic range
to compete with
all the other stuff going on.
00:20:45
Since we're doing music, I like having
the extra couple of dB of headroom
on the meter.
00:20:51
I know where I am in the world.
00:20:54
The other thing I'm gonna look at
right now, early on in the mix,
is I'm gonna set up some elements
in the stereo bus chain,
that I will want to use.
00:21:03
I tend to like having an EQ
as an overall thing.
00:21:07
I put a limiter on the back end,
and then sometimes I use compression,
sometimes I don't.
00:21:12
What I'm gonna start with here, I'm gonna
start from the back and move forward.
00:21:16
I'm gonna put a Massey L2000 Limiter
on the back of it.
00:21:21
I like this,
because it's a great compromise
between getting level, and also keeping
the tonality of my mix.
00:21:28
We're gonna leave that
on the back end,
we're not even gonna change
a knob at this point.
00:21:35
And then we're gonna use Bax EQ.
00:21:39
And then we're gonna use
a UA ATR plug-in.
00:21:48
I have a preset
that I like to start with.
00:21:51
It's a little
custom alignment that I did.
00:21:54
Sometimes I end up changing the speed,
but this a 15 ips BASF 900 formulation,
or M.Tech 900 formulation,
1/4" heads at +6.
00:22:03
In tape land, I was always a fan of 1/4",
it always seemed more true
to what I was doing.
00:22:08
So I've carried that over into here,
especially on the low end.
00:22:11
The low end doesn't seem to change
as much using a 1/4" head than a 1/2" head.
00:22:15
Obviously there's debates
about this or whatever,
but that's what I'm sticking with.
00:22:19
Let's run this
and see how we're hitting the ATR,
and see how we're hitting our stereo bus.
00:22:26
I'm gonna open this meter again,
and again keep it open for now.
00:22:48
Ok. So I've just increased
the L2007 just a little bit
just so that
its tonality gets into the game.
00:22:55
I'm mixing through these plug-ins
so that everything I do
and everything I change
will all be through this whole setup.
00:23:03
We are going to now
just look at the bass real quick.
00:23:09
Let's kick the bass in.
00:23:35
He's such a good player. It's always
a fine listen when you solo him up.
00:23:38
I'm gonna start by just
compressing this a little bit.
00:23:41
I think it just needs to sound a little
bit more glued up with the drums.
00:23:45
So I'm gonna go to a UA 1176,
the Silver one, or the Bluestripe one.
00:23:51
You'll see me go to
my starting points a lot,
only because
I just like to open it up
and know that – in this case, I'm at 8:1,
and I have the Attack and the Release
where I usually like to do things.
00:24:01
I really like this plug-in on bass.
00:24:39
Sometimes I do go back
and really make sure
that my bypass level
and my output level are really close.
00:24:47
Sometimes, if I know
I'm not really gonna look back,
you know,
when I'm moving forward with it,
I'm not gonna stress too much
that it's exactly the same.
00:24:55
What I do want to make sure though is
that I'm not clipping the output.
00:24:58
For instruments like bass,
things that have
more of an RMS content,
as opposed to a transient content
like a drum,
I want to make sure when
I'm looking at the meter on the track
that I'm right at that point
where it starts getting green to yellow.
00:25:14
Because that is basically
where 0VU would be on a console.
00:25:20
And that's kind of where I came up,
so I still think of my metering
and my levels in that way.
00:25:25
Because I want to make sure
I maintain my headroom
and I'm not crushing things
by the time it gets toward the end,
and everything is in.
00:25:33
So let's take a look
and see where that sits.
00:25:54
The compression is gonna give us
an evenness through the entire track,
and in this particular instance
with this plug-in,
we're gonna get
a little bit of presence out of it,
and I think that's gonna be helpful
in the context of the entire mix.
00:26:08
So as opposed to just
throwing an EQ on it
and adding a little 3K
or something like that,
we're getting an extra little benefit
from the plug-in itself. Check this out.
00:26:31
It's almost like it puts a little
itty-bitty smiley face in there,
so we're getting a little bit of low end
and we're getting
a little bit of presence,
so maybe it's just dipping out
a little at 2 or 300 Hz.
00:26:41
You can look at it both ways.
00:26:43
Let's hear that
in context with the drums.
00:27:02
I really like what that's doing.
00:27:03
It's evening it out just enough
and we're getting the string,
we're getting the presence,
and it still sounds deep.
00:27:10
Now that we have the bass in,
let's take a look at the drums
a little bit closer,
and fine-tune that a little bit as well
with some EQ.
00:27:18
I'm gonna start looking at
the overheads again,
because this is kind of where
the center of the record lies for me,
in this context.
00:27:26
We'll build around the overheads,
we'll build around the performer,
and the performance.
00:27:31
On these overheads,
I'm gonna pop a McDSP EQ,
we're gonna use FilterBank.
00:27:39
Because I have two mono tracks
that I'm treating as stereo,
what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna copy this EQ
immediately right down to...
00:27:49
the next EQ slot below it.
00:27:51
And then, I'm gonna go to my groups
and I am gonna modify
this particular group,
take off "Follow Globals"
and go to "Attributes."
I'm gonna select "Solos."
I'm gonna go "Volume",
and I'm gonna go "Mute."
I'm gonna go "Controls" in insert "b."
Just for the heck of it all, I'll do "a."
I doubt I'll put anything else in there,
but that's what we've done.
00:28:14
While we're at it,
we'll do "Level" on these guys
in case I end up
putting reverb as well.
00:28:21
What this means is I open up one EQ,
I open up the second EQ...
00:28:30
and I turn one...
00:28:33
and the other one magically follows.
00:28:35
Now, I don't have to worry about
them being stereo or not,
it doesn't matter,
I'm just gonna deal with that one EQ,
it's gonna do the same
across both plug-ins. Done.
00:28:43
So we're gonna solo the overheads,
we're gonna give them a listen,
and we're gonna see what
needs to be dealt with, if anything.
00:29:00
What I think it might need is
a little bit more top,
a little bit more openness,
and there may be a little thickness –
300, 400, somewhere in there.
00:29:09
Let's see what it does,
and let me turn a few knobs.
00:29:46
You noticed that I forgot
to gang the bypasses
along with all the EQ settings,
so I need to go back to
my Attributes – "Modify."
And then the bypasses, which I should
have done in the first place.
00:29:58
So, let's try this again,
doing it the right way.
00:30:15
So notice, it's a dB and a half
at 8.8K, 8.9K,
it's a little bit at 400 Hz...
00:30:23
We're just grabbing a couple of things,
and it's changing it enough
to where it's gonna be way more useable,
we're gonna get a lot more detail.
00:30:30
I may actually take the top end
a little bit higher than this,
and see if I like that better.
00:30:35
So let's sweep it, and we'll see.
00:30:51
Because I've raised it up, I'm just
gonna add a little bit more gain.
00:31:03
No! A little too much...
00:31:10
Let's hear this with the bass,
and with our overall mix
that we have at this point.
00:31:16
Let's listen and see
what the changes are.
00:31:19
Listen for the snare
and for the top-end elements,
just to see if we're hearing them,
if they're cutting through,
but they're not overly strident.
00:31:26
Let's switch back and forth
and check it out.
00:31:43
Cool! We're getting
a little more grit out of the snare,
we're getting
a little bit more focus on the cymbals.
00:31:49
Let's take a quick look at
the kick and the snare
and see what we might need to do
with that in context of everything,
and we'll start going through
some of these other tracks.
00:32:09
So now, given that
I'm building things around the overheads,
I don't know if I need to do anything
with this kick right at this moment.
00:32:16
Once we get the other instruments in,
we might need to do a little something,
but I think I'm just
gonna let this sit for the moment.
00:32:22
We'll look at the snare now.
00:32:34
The snare may need
a little bit of compression,
but I also want to keep in mind
the dynamics of the song,
and the dynamics of the player.
00:32:41
We're not trying to do
some pumped up rock thing,
we're not trying to make it
really kind of forceful.
00:32:46
It's about the subtleties,
it's about the groove,
and with a guy like Gadd,
it's about making sure
we keep that stuff intact.
00:32:54
Let me just put something on,
super light, and see if I like it.
00:32:58
And if I do, great,
and if not, then we'll yank it right off.
00:33:01
Let's look at an 1176,
but we'll use the Blackface 1176.
00:33:38
I'm kind of ambivalent about it
at the moment.
00:33:41
But this is what I'm gonna do,
I'm just gonna bypass it for now.
00:33:44
What I like about the compressor in
is that it is levelling the snare,
and what that means
in the context of the track
is that it's making it
punch out a little bit more.
00:33:54
But now my question is: does it really
need to punch out a little bit more
in the context of the kick,
the way that he's playing the hat,
and the subtleties of the snare?
We don't necessarily want it
to overwhelm it,
just to have it overwhelm it.
00:34:07
That's why I'm kind of
ambivalent about it right now,
and as we get the other elements in,
we'll see how it goes.
00:34:14
But it's there, just in case.
00:34:16
Let's take a quick look at the hat,
and take a quick look at the 441 track.
So hat first.
00:34:32
The hat might be slightly thick.
00:34:34
So what I'm gonna do is just put
another McDSP 606,
and maybe we will filter the low end.
00:34:44
Go with a sharper filter, 12 dB.
00:34:48
Just take a little bit out, and see
if that clears it up a little bit
and gives us a little bit more
locational element,
as opposed to it being
a big feature of the sound.
00:34:58
Again, referring back to the overheads
and making sure that
we've got that as a nice picture.
00:35:14
That's pretty subtle. I'm gonna
actually go a little bit farther
so you can hear more of a difference,
but I'll probably end up
going back to what I just had, just
in the context of the big picture.
00:35:25
So let's do that again.
We'll play it, we'll bypass it.
00:35:40
As you can hear,
we definitely lose a lot of
the kick drum in there at that point,
and if it's something that
really bothers you,
this is a great technique
to get rid of that kind of element,
and help localize a bit better.
00:35:51
I'm gonna back it off a bit more
because I thought this was
a little bit too extreme
for what I was after.
00:35:56
And then now,
let's look at this 441 track.
00:35:59
I love this kind of elements,
against the drum kit.
00:36:02
And I do this a lot, almost all the time
when I track drums.
00:36:07
Having this one additional element,
that just adds
a little bit of life and excitement.
00:36:12
Most drummers love it when you pump
this kind of thing into their headphones.
00:36:16
It gives them kind of an extra dimension
of touch sensitivity, if you will.
00:36:21
Victor Indrizzo loves it,
Jeremy Stacey, Pete Thomas,
all these really great drummers –
I've been able to work with
Matt Chamberlain as well –
they all love hearing that kind of goosh
in their phones,
because it gives them something to
play against. Let's give this a listen.
00:36:40
And what this is – this is a D19,
through the mic pre,
through a Distressor, set to 6:1,
which is my favorite ratio
on a Distressor.
00:36:48
Let's mess with this for just a second.
Let's give it a listen.
00:36:56
Ok. There's a lot of ring
on that bass drum.
00:36:59
For this particular instance,
maybe we should back it off a little bit.
00:37:03
I think I'm gonna use
a different McDSP plug-in on this one.
00:37:06
I'm a huge McDSP fan,
and I really like the AE400 Active EQ.
00:37:12
What I like about this is I can actually
monitor the band very quickly,
find where I want to dip,
and then just dip it.
00:37:19
So here we go listening.
00:37:44
When I ended up at this point,
this is where I heard the most
kind of ringingness of the bass drum.
00:37:51
Because I'm listening to
the filter itself,
what I'm gonna do now is
I want to take that stuff away,
so I'm gonna pop out
the Listening element
and then I'm just gonna
drop it down a bit
to see where I can control the ringing.
I'm leaving a little bit of it in there,
but I don't want it
to overwhelm the track.
00:38:16
Here it is, after and before.
00:38:32
I'm gonna make it a little bit more
dramatic so you can hear it.
00:38:51
Let's check out
these guitar tracks real quick.
00:38:53
I'll bring them up in context
and then we'll solo them up
and see what we have going on.
00:39:25
Notice we have the Guitar track,
and we have the Guitar Delay track.
00:39:29
And notice that the delay track
only seems like
we're seeing it in a couple of spots.
00:39:35
What I believe Mike had was
it on a volume pedal,
so that he only sent
to the amp that had the delay
when he wanted to use it.
00:39:44
It sounds like the guitar is a Tele,
and I don't remember what amp,
but I'm sure it was just
a single, like 12 combo amp,
of Fender origin.
00:40:01
We're hearing bleed with the drums.
Imagine that.
00:40:04
Again, at the end of the day, because
everything's being played at the same time,
it just kind of adds
to the magic a little bit,
and it's nothing to be worried about.
00:40:12
The next thing I'm gonna do is
pan these guitars off to the left.
00:40:16
Because that's where I want them to live.
00:40:20
I'm gonna check out this section
where the delay comes in,
just to figure out what's going on,
because I honestly don't remember.
00:40:42
A quick little slap delay,
or a rhythmic delay of some kind.
00:40:45
And here they are both together.
00:40:59
Let's listen in context for a second
and see what we need to do
with the guitar
to make sure we hear it, it speaks,
and it sits well with everybody else.
00:41:19
I think I'm just gonna try
a little LA3A on here,
just to give it a little bit more body.
00:41:27
As we did with the bass,
we're just gonna see
if we can get a little tone out of it
and just get a little bit more evenness
and make sure
it's speaking the entire time.
00:41:52
Ok. So let's check it
in and out of bypass.
00:42:10
If you wonder why I picked the LA3A
over certain other options,
LA2A's, or another 1176, or...
the plethora of other things out there,
I really like LA3A's on guitar.
They seem to react very nicely
with the Attack and the Release.
00:42:26
They feel good
without being too obtrusive.
00:42:29
If I wanted something
really aggressive and really heavy,
I'd look for something else.
00:42:33
But what I want to avoid is
undoing Mike's thing.
00:42:37
We're gonna take a quick look now
at the Wurlitzer
and we'll basically have
our rhythm section together.
00:42:42
Then we'll look at
the more melodic elements,
being the B3 and the trumpet.
A quick push up of the Wurli,
and see where we are with that.
00:43:14
Yes, it is a little crunchy.
00:43:17
Yes, blame the engineer!
And yes, at the end of the day,
it probably doesn't mean
a whole lot of nothing.
00:43:23
It's just giving us
a little bit of extra character.
00:43:26
If it were super distorted,
it would have been caught
at the time of the tracking.
00:43:31
Wurlitzers can do these things,
it's not the end of the world at all,
and it adds a little bit to
the spirit of the track in a funny way.
00:43:40
I probably want to EQ it a little bit
because it is a little dark,
and it is a little thick.
00:43:44
I want it to just sit in with
everything else just a little bit better.
00:43:47
So what I think I'm gonna go for,
right off the bat,
is a UA API 550.
00:43:56
Again, we're gonna try and take out
the size of it a little bit,
and maybe give it a little more presence,
and a little more clarity.
00:44:20
So, listening in the track,
and we'll bypass it,
and we'll see if we're getting
a little more presence,
and just a little bit less size.
00:44:47
I'm gonna play it back one more time.
00:44:49
What I want you to listen for is –
without the EQ,
the Wurlitzer track just feels now
out of context with everything else.
00:44:56
Everything else has got
a nice little space around it,
you feel like
it's all part of the same thing,
and then suddenly without the EQ,
with the Wurlitzer,
it's just a little bit too far forward.
00:45:06
By tailoring it just this little bit,
we're able to make it feel like
it's sitting with everything else.
00:45:31
Next, I want to add
a little compression to it.
00:45:34
Right where I stopped,
there was this beautiful little flourish,
and I want to make sure
we can hear those details
without me having to go through
and ride it like crazy.
00:45:42
What I'm gonna do with this one is
I think I'm gonna go
a little more modern on the compression,
and I am going to use
the Elysia mpressor.
00:45:52
This thing's super, super versatile.
00:45:55
You can really make stuff crazy.
00:45:57
But I also think it has
a nice combination when you go easy.
00:46:01
It's got some toughness to it,
but you can also get subtle with it.
00:46:04
So anyway, enough of my talking,
let's give it a listen.
00:46:49
You can hear it adds just a slight
little bit of toughness to the sound.
00:46:53
But let's listen to it in context and
make sure we're not kidding ourselves.
00:46:57
I'll exaggerate the effect
a little bit more
and see if it actually
improves it as well.
00:47:24
The other thing I'm gonna do is
this compressor has this cool function
called the Gain Reduction Limit.
00:47:29
What I want to do is
I want to make sure I don't get below
more than 4 dB of compression on this.
00:47:36
I don't want it to feel
like it gets swallowed.
00:47:38
One great feature about this compressor
is it'll do exactly that.
00:47:41
If it gets to
a certain gain reduction point,
it'll just stop gain reducing
beyond that point.
00:47:46
"Gain reducing..."
What an interesting phrase that is.
00:47:49
You know it's kicked in
when this Gain Reduction little LED
at the bottom of the meter lights up.
00:48:18
I'm digging that.
I think that's really cool.
00:48:21
In listening to where I am right now,
I might want a little bit more of
a room context for the rhythm section.
00:48:28
How do we do that?
With close miked instruments,
we have to add a little reverb.
00:48:33
We have to add a little something that
will make it all maybe feel like
it's in the same space.
00:48:38
I don't know if the drums
necessarily need it,
because between that 441
with that nice bit of compression
and between the overheads, we are
getting a sense of space with the room.
00:48:47
So the first thing I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna open up an Aux track.
00:48:55
Assign it a bus input.
00:49:03
Call this "Room."
What we'll try first is
the Audio Ease Altiverb.
00:49:15
We are gonna go to Recording studio,
and we're gonna look for
the Cello Studio 2,
which I like,
because it's got a bit of a round,
kind of darker tone to it.
00:49:30
Most likely,
I'll leave it exactly where it is,
that's why
I've closed the plug-in right away.
00:49:34
So let's start on the Wurlitzer.
00:49:54
It's short. So what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna exaggerate it
a little bit right now
so you can really hear it.
00:49:59
Then I'm gonna back it off
once I get it in the track,
and once I get it
where I think it should be.
00:50:17
It's pretty obvious
we walked into a room there with that.
00:50:20
We are going to
bring this back a little bit.
00:50:22
I'm gonna listen
in context with the track,
then I'm gonna slide it up a little bit.
00:50:35
I'm gonna mute the guitar
just for the moment,
so we can focus on the Wurlitzer
just a little bit more.
00:50:57
I'm gonna mute it and unmute it,
and what I'm listening for is
just to see if it recedes in the track
a little bit more and if it just feels
like it's a little more part of the scene.
00:51:23
I'm gonna add a little more.
00:51:31
The other thing I'm gonna do is kick
it out to the right a little bit more.
00:51:36
With the pan.
00:51:55
Now we feel like we have
a little more breath,
and we're getting a little bit more
dimension to the sound.
00:52:01
Next, we're gonna
take a look at the electric guitar
and see what we can do with that.
00:52:06
I'm gonna mute the Wurlitzer
for the moment.
00:52:08
Let's just focus on the electric.
00:52:11
Let's give it a quick listen.
00:52:23
What are we gonna do
with reverb for that?
I'm gonna send it to the same reverb.
00:52:28
Bus 7, mono in, stereo out.
00:52:51
I'm not gonna put it on the Delay track,
because I don't know
how much you're gonna hear it
and I feel like
I'll be able to control the reverb tone
a little bit better
if I just use it on this one track.
00:53:01
Rhythm section, with the Altiverb
on both the guitar and the Wurlitzer.
00:53:34
Now you're probably wondering
why I'm going mono in to this reverb,
and not doing stereo
and not panning it left and right.
00:53:42
What I'm trying to accomplish
with this reverb is a sense of space,
and a sense of...
depth, in a small room.
00:53:51
When you're in a small room talking,
we're hearing sound
coming from all over the place.
00:53:56
And... just by virtue of having
the primary instrument panned to the left
and sending it mono,
and then having a stereo return,
we're gonna hear the main guitar
where we want to,
and we're gonna hear
the decay on either side,
which is totally, totally fine.
00:54:15
I don't need to feel like
the reverb's only coming from this side.
00:54:18
I want to create a nice sense of space,
and sometimes, you don't need
to get that critical with it
and make it feel like it's a pinpoint.
00:54:26
If it's loud enough in the room,
it's gonna feel like it's coming from
all over the place, anyway.
00:54:31
Now I want to circle back
and see where we are level-wise.
00:54:35
I'm gonna open up our meter.
00:54:37
And we're gonna run it a second.
00:55:05
So you noticed our RMS level is
sitting right around 0
for the groove part of the tune.
00:55:11
You noticed that it does get dynamic,
we're not crushing anything yet.
00:55:15
Our peaks are being limited,
we're not getting any overs,
because the L2007 is on the back end.
00:55:21
All these things are taken care of.
00:55:23
We're gonna take a quick look
and see how hard we're hitting the ATR,
because that will affect
our mix and our tone.
00:55:30
So I'm gonna see where it is right now,
and if I need an adjustment,
we'll look at the options for that.
00:55:45
As a starting point,
I think we're in a pretty good place
with the ATR and how I'm hitting it.
00:55:50
Now what I have noticed is that
I have put all my inserts
on my stereo bus trim fader,
and not my stereo bus fader.
00:55:59
What does that mean at the moment?
Absolutely nothing.
00:56:04
Because I'm not fooling with the level
on my stereo bus trim at all,
and I'm not doing anything critical
at this point.
00:56:12
Forgive me. I'm gonna correct myself,
and we're just gonna copy
these plug-ins right down
to where I intended them to go
at the beginning of this.
00:56:21
Problem solved.
Nothing is gonna be different at all.
00:56:26
So let's head to the trumpet.
00:56:29
It plays only
in a couple of spots in the tune.
00:56:32
We're gonna bring up the fader,
right now without any processing on it,
against the track,
and give it a listen.
00:56:59
Let's solo it up, so you can hear it.
00:57:02
You noticed how he's playing,
and the groove,
and the way his rhythm is
sitting against everybody else.
00:57:08
It's an important part of the record,
and I want to make sure
that doesn't get lost
in any of the translation,
and in any of the thing that's going on.
00:57:16
So let's give it a listen solo'ed
so you can hear what it's like.
00:57:19
Again, it was a Royer tube mic,
so it's a figure-8 mic,
so we're expecting some ambience on it,
and then depending on
how close he was to the mic
will dictate
how much of the room that he was in
that we'll get in the mic.
00:57:51
When you listen to it solo'ed,
it's almost got...
00:57:55
... kind of feel against it.
00:57:57
It sounds like he could be
playing in half-time...
00:57:59
He was probably feeling it half-time
against the track.
00:58:03
That's something that
we want to really try to preserve.
00:58:06
Now we need to deal with
the dynamics right away,
because I know that's gonna be an issue.
00:58:11
Let's think about compression,
and our compression choices.
00:58:14
I'm gonna go with the...
00:58:17
1176, because that's gonna give me
a little bit more option.
00:58:21
I think we'll use the AE version.
00:58:23
I may want to
take advantage of the 2:1 ratio on this.
00:58:27
We're gonna run it, and let's see.
00:58:55
I'm digging that. I think that's
a really, really good starting point.
00:58:58
I'll probably end up EQ'ing it as well
but the first thing I want to do is
get some reverb on it.
00:00:00
Now would be a really good time
to switch back to our rough mix
to see what everybody was liking
about the overall feel,
and about the ambience.
00:00:08
Let's take a quick look at that.
00:00:11
I'm just gonna slide this down
so it's next to my stereo bus.
00:00:14
On my controller over here, I'm gonna
switch back and forth between the two.
00:01:18
It's in a bit of a different place.
00:01:20
Is that a good thing,
is that a bad thing?
There are elements
about the rough that I like.
00:01:26
I'm kind of digging
the spaciousness of the reverb,
but with my mix, I kind of like
the more directness
of the instruments at the moment.
00:01:37
So, knowing what they like,
knowing where we're coming from,
now let's see if we can
kind of spin it back toward that spot
where I – as the mixer –
it's making sense to me,
and then the client, the artist –
it makes sense to them as well.
00:01:53
There's quite a bit of reverb on
– long reverb –
on the guitar and on the Wurlitzer.
00:01:58
So we may look at that as well
and see if we end up into that.
00:02:01
I'm 99% sure there was just one reverb
on that mix, on the rough mix.
00:02:06
There may have been two,
but if there was,
it was used very, very sparingly.
00:02:11
Keeping those elements in mind,
let's start looking at the trumpet.
00:02:15
Let's think about the reverb,
and let's think about the context of that
across the whole mix.
00:02:19
Back to our stereo bus,
let's listen to the trumpet,
and then for the reverb on this,
I can do a few different things.
00:02:27
Some form of a plate by somebody
would be my first inclination actually.
00:02:32
What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna create
a new – and again – mono Aux input.
00:02:39
And call this "plate."
This I'm gonna put on bus input 9.
00:02:48
In my little head,
busses 7 and 8 usually go to...
00:02:53
Bus 7 is usually a short instrument verb,
Bus 8 is usually a long instrument verb,
and then 9, 10, 11,
those kinds of things,
are for the lead instruments,
so the reverbs, the delays, and things
like that, like on a lead vocal,
that's where that stuff
usually sits for me.
00:03:10
So... Creature of habit,
we all have our things.
00:03:13
Let's see what our options are for reverb
at this point. Let's take a look.
00:03:17
I think... We may go for a UAD RMX.
00:03:23
That's got a little grit to it.
00:03:26
I think if we look for
the plate in there,
that may do what I want it to do.
00:03:33
And immediately, I'm gonna add
some decay time to it
because it just needs to go up.
00:03:39
So we'll put maybe 4.0...
seconds of decay time.
00:03:43
And then we'll predelay it.
Let's go 10 ms to start.
00:03:47
Well, let's assign the trumpet to Bus 9.
00:03:52
I'm gonna solo it up first
so we can really hear what's going on,
and see what we've got.
00:04:08
That's pretty darn long.
So let's try going... 3.0.
00:04:24
I'm gonna use the nudge button
and bring it down a little bit more even.
00:04:27
What I'm trying to do is I want to
feel the reverb decay in a musical way.
00:04:32
I don't want it to feel like
it's just splattered on there.
00:04:35
This may not be the right reverb
for what I'm going for,
but let's go down the path
just a little bit longer.
00:04:51
Let's hear that in the track.
00:05:04
The next thing I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna raise
the output of the compressor a little bit
just so that I have
enough headroom on the fader.
00:05:31
Let's look at this reverb again,
and our settings.
00:05:34
The tone is actually
kind of what I'm going for.
00:05:36
I want it to be a little –
I don't know, if it's "metallic",
it would be the correct word –
but I want it to have a little sass
and a little brashness to it.
And I think this is doing it for us.
00:05:46
The next thing I want to look at
is actually the predelay.
00:05:49
I'm gonna turn it up quite a bit
so you can see
what the difference is in the feel,
from these 10 ms.
00:05:56
We'll play the phrase, we'll stop,
we'll lengthen the predelay.
00:05:59
So let's check this out.
00:06:14
Once you get up into this area,
above 10 or 20 ms,
you're gonna hear an audible space
between the actual note he plays.
You're gonna hear a space,
and then it hits the reverb.
00:06:26
What's cool about this is
you can generate
an effect of it almost feeling like
a delayed reverb,
just by using predelay.
00:06:34
From the 40 again,
and then we'll shoot back to the 10,
and you can kind of hear
the difference there.
00:06:53
Now what I'm hearing here is
I'm hearing like the trumpet feels like
it's sitting
in reverb at the 10 ms level.
00:07:01
And when I shoot it up to 40, it feels
like we're changing the perspective
of how close the performer is to you.
00:07:08
By having shorter predelay times,
you're gonna feel like the performer is
a little farther in the distance
because the reverb hits you immediately.
00:07:16
When you have predelay,
when you're adding some distance
between the actual note and the reverb,
you're almost giving the illusion
– well you are giving the illusion
that the trumpet player has come forward,
but yet they're still in a big space.
00:07:30
Let's listen for that real quick.
We're gonna start at 10,
it's gonna feel like
he's back in the room,
and then when we go to 40,
it's gonna feel like he's moved forward.
00:08:00
I'm kind of digging that.
00:08:02
Let's do a quick check against our rough
just to see if there is as much reverb,
because that could be
a determining factor of the song,
of it being... of getting us back
to that spirit of where we were.
00:08:14
There may or may not be,
but let's just give it a quick listen.
00:08:41
What I'm hearing in the rough is
I'm just feeling a little bit more relaxed
overall with the reverb on the trumpet.
00:08:47
The rough seems
a little bit more relaxed.
00:08:50
Maybe I'm pushing it a little too much.
00:08:52
And also, too, I think I might bring back
the guitar and the Wurlitzer a little bit,
just to give it a little bit more
of a smoky kind of a feel.
00:09:01
Because I think that's something
on the rough that's there,
that I just want to explore for a second.
00:09:07
I may go back to where it was,
but I have a feeling
if I just make these couple of tweaks,
I can get it more into that ballpark.
00:09:14
Let's do this real quick.
00:09:15
We will bring back
the guitar and the Wurli.
00:09:42
The snare is a little loud too.
00:09:44
So I'm gonna do that at the same time,
I'm gonna bring it back a little bit.
00:09:56
While we're at it,
we'll check out the kick.
00:09:59
This is all part of my process.
00:10:01
You've got to go back and forth
sometimes to find the sweet spot.
00:10:34
Now let's go up to where the trumpet
comes in and give that a quick listen.
00:10:56
I'm gonna pop a quick EQ on the trumpet.
00:10:59
I'm gonna go with
this AE400 again – the McDSP –
but I'm gonna do
a little something different.
00:11:05
There is an area of the trumpet that
gets a little harsh when he plays hard.
00:11:10
The great thing about this AE400 is
it's a dynamic EQ.
00:11:13
I can adjust it so that
when he gets to a certain volume,
it'll actually turn down
that frequency band.
00:11:18
Let us solo this up real quick.
00:11:26
And I really like using this feature,
because you can really narrow in quickly
and figure out what area it is
that you're trying to address.
00:11:44
That's kind of it right there.
00:11:46
What I'm gonna do is
I am going to set this up
so that when he goes particularly hard,
it will turn the volume down
a certain amount.
00:11:58
Bring down the Threshold...
00:12:01
... a bit.
00:12:02
Turn up the Ratio a little bit.
00:12:06
And then...
00:12:08
This is the amount of gain reduction,
once I hit the Threshold, I will achieve.
00:12:15
Now, this is called an active EQ,
a dynamic EQ,
a frequency-depending compressor,
these are all terms
that basically mean the same thing.
00:12:25
They're analyzing a frequency band,
they're taking
a section of the frequency band,
and they are manipulating it in some way.
00:12:31
Either expanding it by turning it up
when it hits the Threshold,
or turning it down, compressing it
when it hits the Threshold.
00:12:39
We're going to play it for a second
and just set it so that we got it
in a place that makes sense.
00:13:09
So let's hear it before and after.
Here's with it out.
00:13:38
So now, with it soloed,
I'm hearing something with
this RMX 16 I'm not digging.
00:13:43
There's a weird resonance
in the decay of the reverb.
00:13:47
And I'm not sure that for this tune,
it's the right thing.
00:13:51
Let me play a little bit of
that end phrase,
and listen to the decay,
and listen to what's happening.
00:14:00
There's a pitch in there.
00:14:02
I'm not sure that I'm totally loving it.
00:14:08
I think what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna swap it out.
00:14:11
I'm gonna go with
– maybe the UA, the plate.
00:14:19
Let's give that a listen.
00:14:28
I'm liking that better already.
00:14:30
We're gonna take down
the decay time a little bit.
00:14:34
We're gonna find the predelay
and we're gonna turn that up a little bit
because we were digging that.
00:14:40
I mean there's a 50 ms right there,
we're gonna raise it a little bit.
00:14:44
Let's check this out.
00:14:51
Now let's listen to it in the track.
00:15:26
I'm liking that better.
00:15:28
The decay is nice,
it's big, it sounds kind of vintagey,
it's got that kind of smoky
kind of quality that I was hoping to get.
00:15:35
I'm also thinking that I want to add
a little bit more openness to the trumpet.
00:15:41
We've taken down the kind of honky
area that could be really obtrusive
but I think I just want it
to be a little sweeter on top.
00:15:48
So we're gonna grab this AE400...
00:15:51
Somewhere around there,
we're gonna open it up a little bit
and just see if we get a benefit or not.
00:16:07
Ok. Here it is without that band.
00:16:15
I kind of like it with it,
so I'm gonna leave it in.
00:16:17
It's just adding
that extra little bit of openness
that I think at the end of the day
is gonna help us.
00:16:23
The only other thing
we don't have in yet is the B3.
00:16:26
Let's go up to an area where
that's playing a bit, and pop it in.
00:16:29
Let's just listen to the solo
and figure out what we want to do.
00:16:56
Listening in the context of the track
just so we get our bearings.
00:17:00
My levels are not in a good spot.
00:17:03
Let's just make sure they're even,
and then let's pan it,
for the moment left and right.
00:17:11
And see what kind of tone
we're talking about here.
00:17:35
It's a stereo track.
I definitely want to limit it.
00:17:39
I can either get crazy
and try to find a way
to stereo link two mono compressors,
or I can just set up a stereo Aux track...
00:17:51
Bus both of these
to that stereo Aux track,
and then process both sides
as I see fit.
00:17:57
For this, I'm gonna pick
a higher bus, like 21-22.
00:18:02
We're gonna assign both of these guys
to output bus 21-22.
00:18:06
I could assign them to 21 and to 22,
or I could do this
and pan them hard left and right,
it doesn't really matter.
We're getting the same end result.
00:18:18
I call it "B3."
We should be hearing it.
00:18:27
Now I'm gonna solo safe these guys,
because for all intents and purposes,
we're really only gonna
deal with this new track.
00:18:34
That's gonna be our "baby."
So I'm gonna do that,
I'm gonna move it up,
I'm gonna make it small.
00:18:41
I even could make it even micro,
because this is gonna be the focus,
this new track number 26.
00:18:47
Let's talk about the sound
and what we want to try and do with it.
00:18:52
It's definitely
kind of a different compression.
00:18:54
And this one
we can actually hit a little bit,
and we can grit it up a little bit.
00:18:58
I think I'm gonna go back to
this Elysia mpressor.
00:19:02
We're gonna try to kind of find
a setting that's a bit more aggressive.
00:19:09
I'm gonna go back to
my little start point,
just so I have it.
Let's roll it for a second.
00:19:15
Then I'm gonna turn some knobs.
00:19:57
So I've got a relatively fast
Release setup.
00:20:01
I have that because I want to feel
like there's a little pumping effect.
00:20:04
I kind of want to hear
a bit of the compression effect.
00:20:06
I have the Attack set
so we're hearing
the front end of the note come through
and the click,
and that's not getting clipped off.
00:20:13
But the body of the waveform
after that attack
we're trying to grab and just do
a little something else.
00:20:19
We've changed
the envelope of it a little bit.
00:20:22
So let's hear that in the track.
00:21:04
If you noticed, we get the added benefit
of hearing more reverb,
because now we're compressed,
and we're compressing aggressively.
00:21:10
So those tails, and the recovery
are all helping us
to hear that reverb a bit more.
00:21:15
The other thing I'm gonna do is
I'm going to pan it
kind of on the keyboard side.
00:21:22
I'm gonna take the panning then,
and move it into a place
that I can still feel like
there's a bit of a sound stage
and that there's a performance.
00:21:30
Again, I don't need
this thing to swallow me.
00:21:32
So let's pan it off to the side.
Let's leave a little bit of...
00:21:37
of panning width, so that
we do get a little bit of movement
out of that speaker. But it doesn't
have to overwhelm the whole thing.
00:21:44
It just can be that
extra little bit of ear candy
– I really don't love that term,
but it might apply here.
00:21:50
Let's see where we are.
I'm going a little bit farther back,
to where the organ first enters.
00:22:37
That spot always makes me laugh
when that organ comes in
after the little freak-out section.
00:22:42
I want to hear
a little more depth on the organ
and I want to feel like
it has a little bit more overall space,
so I'm gonna try
a little bit of that long stuff
that we have on the trumpet
and see if that gets us anything cool.
00:22:56
I'm gonna go into the solo
a little bit and see.
00:23:36
So I'm liking that...
00:23:38
I want to just get
a little more presence on the organ,
and another nice thing
about this Elysia compressor is that
it's got a funky little EQ in it.
You can engage it.
00:23:48
And it does this interesting
kind of a tilt thing where...
00:23:51
around the frequency
you have set at the center,
you're boosting and then simultaneously
cutting everything below that frequency.
00:23:59
So let's go to, maybe...
00:24:01
the 1.3 area,
or something close to that...
00:24:05
1K.
And then we'll turn it up a little bit
and see if it gives us
anything worth exploring.
00:24:42
I kind of like it. It's helping me
localize it more toward the right side.
00:24:47
It's also emphasizing a little bit of
the interior motion of the thing.
00:24:51
So I'm gonna roll with that.
00:24:54
And now that we have
the main elements in,
let's listen from the top real quick
and see if I'm missing anything
kind of major.
00:26:15
A couple of things.
00:26:16
I think I got the hi-hat
a little bit too loud.
00:26:19
I think I need to add a little bit more
just overall ambience,
especially to the guitar.
I think the Wurlitzer is okay.
00:26:26
But I might need
a little bit more reverb,
or something that kind of in-between,
that bridges
the long stuff and the really
short stuff we have on there.
00:26:35
Let's bring the hi-hat down first
while we're thinking about it.
00:27:02
I kind of like it there.
I know I brought it back quite a bit.
00:27:05
Also, in keeping in our concept of
the overheads kind of leading it
and feeling like
we've got people in front of us,
I think that works way better than
where we were just a few minutes ago.
00:27:17
Now, let's take a quick look at the guitar
and then let's come up with a reverb
that's kind of on the in-between front.
00:27:25
I'm gonna set it up the same way.
A mono Aux.
00:27:30
Because it's an instrumental track,
and we're looking for a medium,
or a medium/long thing...
00:27:35
I'm going to use Bus 8 as my input.
00:27:41
Solo safe.
00:27:46
I think I might want to try and go dark.
00:27:49
And this BX 20 is kind of cool
for something like that.
00:27:56
Let's see here our choices.
00:27:58
Oh look! We have John Paterno presets!
We'll do 1970s NYC Kit.
00:28:05
It looks like we're using channel a,
and it looks like we've got
a decent amount of decay on there.
00:28:10
So this may be a good starting point.
Let's see.
00:28:36
That's a pretty interesting sound.
It may be too loud,
but I think it's pretty cool.
Let's listen to it in the track.
00:29:04
I'm digging that.
00:29:05
Then now, something else that I'm just
noticing is this 441 track
is definitely on the loud side.
00:29:11
I'm gonna bring that back
a little bit too.
00:29:13
It's bringing the drums
too aggressive and too forward.
00:29:16
By bringing it back, I hope to feel like
the drums are going back into the track
and it just feels like a nice thing
all the way around. Let's do that.
00:29:50
That's really getting someplace.
00:29:53
Now, I like this reverb
I just put on Mike so much,
I'm wondering
what it sounds like on the trumpet.
00:29:57
Because it might give us a little bit
more depth of field with the trumpet,
because it's a pretty brash sound.
00:30:03
Let's pop that on real quick
and see if it's a go or a no.
00:30:07
So we're right at the trumpet.
00:30:33
I'm gonna play it one more time
and I'm gonna just mute the return.
00:30:38
I think
it'll be a little bit easier to hear.
00:30:40
We're gonna just
name this real quick "Dark verb."
It gives us a little bit more wideness,
a slightly different decay time,
so in effect, we're just creating
a bit more of a complex reverb.
00:31:03
And it's also helping the guitar
at the same time, so it's a win-win.
00:31:06
Then the only other question,
based on the rough mix
– remember,
there was a lot of reverb on it,
and whether or not that's good or bad,
you know,
we're starting to figure that out.
00:31:16
I'm wondering if I put a little bit of
reverb on one of the drum elements,
like even the snare drum,
maybe that Dark reverb might work.
00:31:25
And if it doesn't work, then...
You know, we'll just get rid of it.
00:31:43
I kind of like that level, so let's
play it out, and then I'll turn it on.
00:32:09
In the spirit of the rough,
I think that's actually a good call.
00:32:13
So I think we have
our core elements in place at this point.
00:32:17
We need to look at whatever is going on
in this freak-out section.
00:32:21
And at this point, in the song,
it looks like there's just
one additional hi-hat overdub.
00:32:26
So let's see
what's going on with this real quick.
00:32:44
It's a little kooky.
00:32:46
Let's pan it off to the side.
00:33:06
The first time the tom actually hits
is in that guitar solo section,
so let's just see
what's going on with that.
00:33:11
I'm gonna play it right there.
00:33:18
It goes by so fast
that we may not even notice it.
00:33:21
I'm digging the drum balance where it is,
so what I'm gonna do –
I'm just gonna have it turn on
where I want it to turn on.
00:33:28
There's a few ways to do this.
We could put a gate on the whole track,
but a really quick down and dirty way
that's just as effective...
00:33:36
First thing we have to do is
take off the drum VCA
so that we can actually
get to those particular things.
00:33:45
I am going to separate regions
just on the toms,
and then I'm gonna mute those toms,
around everything up to that drum hit.
00:33:54
And then everything after the drum hit
– I like to leave a little bit of decay
to make sure that we're cool.
00:33:59
We've already determined
earlier in the mix
that there's really nothing going on
up until this end thing,
so we can safely go... back to here.
00:34:09
I think that high tom was
right around here someplace,
so we're gonna mute all of that as well.
00:34:15
Now we're gonna turn up the faders a bit.
00:34:17
We're gonna concentrate on this tom.
00:34:30
A couple of different ways we can do this
to get more level just on the tom,
I can hit Control, and then raise
the volume just on that,
and it won't affect
the rest of the group.
00:34:40
Let's hear what that does.
00:34:46
Ok. If I need even more level,
which I kind of do,
I'm gonna go up even more.
00:34:53
If I want to get it
to speak a little bit more,
let's try an EQ real quick.
00:34:59
Let's go 560, because we have
a little more control on the lower bands.
00:35:03
Maybe give us a little boost at 125,
and then just so we hear it,
a little boost at, maybe, 2K,
and 4K,
so we can get a little stick on it.
00:35:16
A little bit better. I'm gonna
turn it up just a little bit more.
00:35:22
Again, keeping it in context,
we don't want it to be too loud,
but we want to make sure we hear it
when he does play it.
00:35:36
I'm gonna go up just a tad more,
but that's the ballpark.
00:35:40
Now we're gonna look at the high tom,
remember
we were dealing with the phase earlier.
00:35:45
We'll just go with that EQ
that we had first,
just that one band,
so that we can use the phase function.
00:35:50
And we'll go ahead and flip it.
00:35:52
We don't even really
have to look at it again.
00:35:55
So let's give that a listen
and see where we are.
00:35:58
We're gonna get close.
00:36:09
We're gonna do
a little bit of EQ to that,
but what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna grab the McDSP E606.
00:36:17
2.5-3k action on that,
and we're gonna just do this,
and let it loop for a second.
00:36:38
I want to get some more cut out of it,
just a little bit more oomph.
I think that'll take care of it.
00:37:00
So that may be it for the tom hits.
00:37:02
So we're gonna go ahead
and mute the rest of them.
00:37:05
Since we know it's just the high tom
on this particular track,
I'm gonna ungroup these for a second
by hitting Shift+Cmd+G,
and then I'm gonna mute
these other spots that we don't need.
00:37:15
We're really just gonna use
these couple of tracks,
just to enhance
the few times he does hit the toms.
00:37:22
I'm gonna roll forward
and I'm gonna do the same thing.
00:37:25
I'm gonna mute these other two tracks
that we don't need
– there's nothing going on –
and then it'll just be the floor tom
when it hits, or the low tom,
and then the high tom for those
couple of hits when it does come up.
00:37:37
We are gonna get our groups back again.
00:37:40
We're gonna make these smaller.
00:37:43
Let's get our Drum VCA back on,
and just basically make all the drums
to a manageable viewing height.
00:37:51
As a matter of fact, we're gonna do that
with a bunch of stuff,
just so we get our perspective
and we can kind of see where we are.
00:38:00
Next thing I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna take a look at my stereo bus.
00:38:03
I want to see where my levels are.
Again, I know they were good earlier,
so we're gonna open up our meter.
00:38:09
I'm going to take a look at
how we're hitting.
00:38:13
Then we're gonna take it from there.
I'm gonna undo those clips,
and here we go.
00:38:38
Now I'm gonna take a quick look at
the overall level.
00:38:41
I'm gonna see if
it'll take a little bit more
than what I've gotten at this point.
00:38:46
I usually don't do this,
but for right now,
because I really like
the way this is feeling,
I'm gonna save this preset on my L2007
and I'm just gonna call it
"Green Foam A."
This way, I can quickly get back to it
if I don't like what I've just done.
00:39:17
By hitting this Compare button,
I can go from my new setting
to my old setting.
That's the other nice way to do this.
00:39:23
I can A/B it right there in the plug-in.
00:39:46
Obviously, it's louder,
but I'm also listening to hear
if it's gluing together
a little bit more,
and I do like what I'm hearing,
so I'm gonna stick with that.
00:39:54
It's also getting my level up
to an area
where it's gonna make sense
to move on to the next stage,
to the mastering phase.
00:40:02
For comparison sake, let me take
the output level down a little bit.
00:40:05
Maybe you'll hear a little bit better
what I am going for here.
00:40:10
So I'm going to compare,
to level match,
and then we'll play longer pieces
and we can really get a feel
for what's going on.
00:40:34
Let me play a little bit of this.
00:40:36
Notice what's going on with the drums,
what's going on with the hats,
and just the overall mid-range.
00:40:43
See if it's not
tightening up a little bit,
and if it's just getting a little bit
more of an excitement factor to it.
00:41:30
Check out what's going on
with the kick and the snare especially.
00:41:33
See how the kick drum changes,
and it just feels a little more
glued in with this setting.
00:41:54
I'm digging that.
We're gonna roll with that.
00:41:57
Then I'm gonna take the output back
all the way up
so I'm getting more level
to my final print.
00:42:03
I want to keep it in that range
that we talked about earlier,
that's zero to +4 on the meter.
00:42:09
Now let's look at
the overall EQ for a second.
00:42:11
I am going to open up the Bax.
00:42:14
I'm also gonna look at the ATR
and see how hard we're hitting it.
00:42:18
So I'm gonna open
both plug-ins at the same time.
00:42:20
Let's give it a listen
from around the spot of the head.
00:42:37
I'm gonna hit the ATR a little bit harder
using the stereo trim fader
that I've set up already
just for this purpose,
so that I have a little bit of control
before it gets into my stereo bus.
00:42:48
Let's listen. I'm gonna
turn it up a little bit as I go,
and I'm just gonna see
if I like the glue factor,
if it seems like it's more, or if I'm
starting to lose some of the transients
and some of the punch,
and some of the depth.
00:42:58
Because if I go too far,
that's definitely a possibility.
00:43:58
Let's go ahead and do that.
A dB and a half up more.
00:44:01
And again, this is gonna hit
our stereo bus a little bit more
at the end of the day,
but I think overall it's gonna help,
especially when things get
a little bit more dynamic
on the kick and the snare.
00:44:13
Let's look at the Bax EQ and see
if we can fill up the low end a little bit
if it needs it, or if we need
a little bit more presence,
which I don't think we need.
00:44:22
Let's put a little Bax EQ on the low end
and see if we get
anything positive out of it.
00:44:27
I tend to like to use the Cut.
00:44:29
I don't know if I have a preset in here.
Oh I do have a preset.
00:44:33
And that's my preset start. This is
where I like to put the filter usually,
and I usually put
this 70 kHz Cut in there.
00:44:40
Sometimes I hear it do
a little something, sometimes I don't.
00:44:43
Maybe I'm just a little bit
superstitious with that one.
00:44:46
Let's give it a listen.
00:45:05
I'm not even hearing much of a difference
with the Cut where it is.
00:45:08
Let's add some low-frequency EQ as well.
Let's go to...
00:45:12
98 Hz and maybe just add...
Let's start at a dB.
00:45:15
And then we'll see if that's too much,
and if it's too much,
we'll go to a half,
or see if it even needs it at all.
00:45:21
From the head...
00:45:41
I definitely don't like the 1.
Let's see what happens with the half.
00:45:44
We'll start bypassed.
00:46:13
I don't think it needs it.
00:46:15
I think it varies the groove a little
bit too much on the low end.
00:46:18
It kind of slows it down a little bit,
in a way that's not as cool
as the way it was.
00:46:24
We're gonna leave that bypassed.
As a matter of fact, I think in this case
we'll even take it off,
because I'm not gonna use it.
00:46:30
So now, this brings us to...
00:46:32
taking a look at some levels,
and maybe doing
a couple of quick fader rides,
and some quick level things,
so that when we go to do our final print,
everything will be groovy.
00:46:42
One area that continuously comes up,
where there are some moments
where the kick gets a little bit loud.
00:46:49
I don't want to compress it to keep
the overall dynamics of the thing,
but I want to make sure that
the ones that get particularly loud
I can deal with in some way,
and, you know, turn it down.
00:46:59
Let's listen to this little stretch
and see if anything is really obtrusive.
00:47:23
There are a couple of kick hits in there
that I'm kind of wishing
were just a little bit lower.
00:47:27
So what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna turn off the Drum group.
00:47:32
The way I'm gonna attack
this particular thing
is I'm going to use Clip Gain.
00:47:37
I'm just gonna highlight
the couple of hits
that I think need
to come down a little bit.
00:47:41
I'm gonna separate the region,
and I'm gonna turn it down,
maybe a dB or two.
00:47:47
So let's listen to this real quick.
00:48:00
Here's before.
00:48:33
So that's working for me.
00:48:35
We still have the dynamics,
but they're just not jumping out.
00:48:38
Now let's look at the snare as well,
because that seems like
it's jumping out a bit.
00:48:52
We're going to do the same
with the snare.
00:48:54
We're going to grab that region,
we're gonna bring it down...
00:48:59
let's go almost 3 dB.
Let's see what that does.
00:49:21
While we're here, I love that stab,
it makes me laugh
every time it comes up,
but it might be a little too loud.
00:49:29
And it appears...
00:49:32
This is something in the rough
that I addressed,
but we're gonna come back
a little bit more.
00:49:37
So let's come back another dB.
00:49:40
So we'll go... Or so, so we're at -2.8.
00:49:45
Let's see what that does.
00:49:58
I like it!
It's still kind of cutting your head off
but it's not completely tearing it off.
00:50:03
So from here,
we have a couple of other elements
that we should just look at quickly.
00:50:09
We have
this second guitar section freak-out...
00:50:13
Or the second freak-out section
I should say,
and it looks like there are
a couple of extra guitar parts in here.
00:50:25
It's got kind of a Uni-Vibe,
swirly kind of a thing going on.
00:50:29
Then let's see what these other ones are,
on these other two guitar parts.
00:50:34
This one says Guitar and Guitar Delay,
so I'm just gonna turn up the Guitar,
so we can see what the part is.
00:50:47
And then we'll bring up the Delay
on that as well, so we hear them both.
00:50:56
I'm gonna group these together.
00:50:59
Because they are acting as one.
00:51:01
We're gonna call this "Gtr OD."
And I'm gonna pan them...
00:51:08
Well, let's see what
the other guitar is doing.
00:51:11
There.
00:51:16
We're coming out of the solo.
00:51:18
So this is a fix,
so that there's continuity.
00:51:21
What I'm gonna do is
I'm actually gonna set them the same
as the main guitar part, with panning.
00:51:29
And then I'm gonna copy
all the effects down as well.
00:51:31
I'm gonna select the UAD,
I'm gonna hold the Option key,
then I'm gonna slide it down,
and that copies the plug-in.
00:51:40
And I'm gonna do the same
with the sends on the main guitar track.
00:51:44
So again, I Option-drag...
00:51:48
I Option-drag.
00:51:51
So now, I have the same guitar tone
going on with these parts.
00:51:56
Which, like I said, the intent is
literally to just have it be there,
because he's ending the solo
over into it.
00:52:03
For this other part, the swirly sound...
00:52:14
To add
a little bit more dimension to this,
let's pan it toward the right a bit,
and let's see if...
00:52:20
in context, it works.
00:52:32
I like it off to the side.
00:52:33
Let's just check the EQ on it,
real quick.
00:52:41
This we might be able
to go a little aggressive with,
because at this point of the tune...
00:52:46
Let's see with this SoundToys thing
called Radiator.
00:52:50
It's a cool kind of tube-y
kind of approach to a plug-in.
00:52:56
And I'm gonna take down the output,
and I'm gonna turn up the input.
00:53:02
And what we get, hopefully,
is just a little bit of breakup,
and a little more aggression
to what's there. Let's hear it.
00:53:13
I'm gonna go
a little bit more aggressive with it.
00:53:29
That adds
just a little bit more beefiness to it.
00:53:32
I'm gonna roll with that, and then also,
I'm gonna put it in our room
that our other guitar is in.
00:53:38
That was Bus 7,
so I'm gonna copy that down as well.
00:53:45
Ok. We get a little splash
around the whole thing that way.
00:53:48
That'll be good for us.
So listening to this spot in context.
00:54:02
So I'm liking that. I think we're in
good shape there with those parts.
00:54:06
Now let's see what's going on
at the end. Another guitar overdub.
00:54:09
I believe it's gonna be a similar thing,
but let's just check.
00:54:20
And indeed, it is.
00:54:22
I'm noticing though
that the level is a bit louder,
so I'm gonna go ahead
and clip gain that back a little bit too.
00:54:30
To 1.3 dB.
Let's hear what that sounds like.
00:54:51
We're gonna give it a listen now
and I'm gonna engage the automation
where I feel necessary
and do a few tweaks and rides
to make sure that...
00:54:59
everything is good. Here we go!
Right there,
that guitar just gets a slight bit loud.
00:55:39
What I'm gonna do is
I am going to go into volume mode
so I can see what's going on.
00:55:45
I'm gonna go into automation touch mode.
00:55:47
Anything that's automated
from this point on
I always leave in this view,
so I know that is, in fact,
I have automation on it.
And I don't get confused later on,
trying to grab a fader and thinking
I'm moving something it doesn't move.
00:56:00
There is that one guitar thing
that I want to just address real quick.
00:56:03
So, listening...
00:56:10
That...
00:56:12
That part, I just want to
bring that down a little bit.
00:56:16
I'm gonna do it
by grabbing the fader over here.
00:56:19
And... Here we go!
So we're gonna keep moving forward.
00:56:54
Ok. So where
that trumpet falls off a little bit,
that might be a good candidate
for just a slight touch of a ride.
00:57:08
It's just that one note.
00:57:09
I'm gonna switch this over
to automation view.
00:57:12
But I'm gonna undo what I just did,
and we're gonna try one more time.
00:57:25
Listening...
00:57:32
I'm good with that.
00:57:34
I'm gonna continue on
with the rest of this process,
go through each track, and any spot
that I feel like needs some attention,
I'm gonna go and do my automation rides.
00:57:43
I'll put a fade on the end, and then
we'll show you the complete song,
the complete result.
00:58:05
I've gone through all the tracks.
00:58:07
I've done level rides
that I think were appropriate.
00:58:10
And when you listen down,
you may notice the organ
is panned to the center,
or toward the center during the solo.
00:58:16
I just thought it made more sense
to do that, as I listened down.
00:58:20
I put a fade
on the end of the track as well.
00:58:22
And now I want to show you the last
few steps to bring the thing home.
00:58:27
What I'm gonna do is
I'm going to create a new audio track
below my stereo bus track.
00:58:33
And it will be a stereo track.
00:58:36
I am going to assign the output to 1-2.
00:58:41
I'm gonna assign the input
to Bus 5 and 6.
00:58:46
I am going to take
the output of my stereo bus track
and assign that output to Bus 5 and 6.
00:58:53
What I'm doing is I'm now
creating a path to an audio track
so I can print my final mix.
00:59:00
I don't want to export,
I don't want to bounce to disk,
I prefer to have the things
in the session
and be able to see it as it goes down,
and listen to it as it goes down.
00:59:10
And now we're gonna name the track.
00:59:13
"Green Foam - Puremix."
I believe that's all spelled correctly.
00:59:20
But we're gonna be a little more anal,
and we're gonna capitalize the "M"
so we have it correct.
00:59:26
And then now, what I'm gonna do...
I'm gonna do two things.
00:59:29
I'm gonna take a look
at the end of my mix
and I'm going to make a point there,
and I'm gonna run back toward the top.
00:59:37
I am going to take a look at
the start of the song
and make sure
I'm starting on a blank area.
00:59:45
I do this for two reasons. I want to
make sure there's a clean start.
00:59:49
I'm gonna open
the Memory Locations window
by hitting Cmd+5,
and then I'm gonna hit Enter
and I'm gonna choose Selection.
00:59:58
When I choose Selection,
what it'll do is it'll remember
my selection,
and I'm gonna call this "Track."
And now, every time I do
subsequent mixes, prints,
vocal up, vocal down,
if this was a vocal thing,
everything is gonna be
exactly the same length.
01:00:15
This is important for when you do
several mixes,
or if you do them
over several periods of time,
and you need to edit them together.
01:00:22
It's quick, easy, painless
to get everything lined up, right away,
no other thought involved.
01:00:27
I recommend you doing that.
01:00:30
It can be a big life-saver, as you go on.
01:00:32
The other thing I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna solo safe this track.
01:00:36
And then I'm gonna record on it.
01:00:38
And then, we will play it down
and print it at the same time.
01:00:56
Mixing records like these
are a contrast to...
01:00:58
say, a pop record where you might have
a couple of bold moves
that really kind of get people going.
01:01:05
These kinds of records are
the cumulative effect
of a lot of subtle moves,
both on the musician's part,
and also on the mixer's part,
in trying to convey
what they are going for.
01:01:17
Ciao amici!
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
- UA 1176
- UA LA3A
- UA API 550A
- UA AMS RMX16
- UA EMT 140
- UA API 560
- UA BAX EQ
- UA Ampex ATR-102
- McDSP AE400
- McDSP Filter Bank E606
- Altiverb
- Massey L2007 Mastering Limiter
- Soundtoys Radiator
- Elysia mPressor
John moved to Los Angeles two weeks after graduation from the University of Miami MUE [Music Engineering] program. A short period of freelance assisting concluded with a staff position at Sunset Sound/Sound Factory in Hollywood, where for five years he was exposed to many great engineers, producers, and artists.
After breaking out of assisting, John worked with a wide range of producers including Mitchell Froom, Joe Chiccarelli, Byron Gallimore, Celso Valli, and Stephen Duffy. He won a Latin Grammy for his work with artist/producer Soraya.
In addition, John has produced or co-produced projects for The Black Mollys, Mitchell Froom, Lustra, Robbie Williams, The Lilac Time, and many other artists. He has also co-written songs with artists and has written pieces for TV and film.
Check out his videos on PureMix to see how his meticulous approach makes for detailed and punchy mixes.
Robbie Williams
The Steve Gadd Band
Soraya
Robben Ford
Eros Ramazzotti
The Thrills
Steve Gadd is one of the most well-known and highly regarded session and studio drummers in the industry, recognized by his induction into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1984. He has worked with popular musicians from many genres, including Simon & Garfunkel, Steely Dan, James Taylor, Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, Grover Washington Jr., Chick Corea, Lee Ritenour, and Al Di Meola.
Green Foam
CLICK_HEREMusic CreditsGreen Foam
By Steve Gadd
Steve Gadd is one of the most well-known and highly regarded session and studio drummers in the industry, recognized by his induction into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1984. He has worked with popular musicians from many genres, including Simon & Garfunkel, Steely Dan, James Taylor, Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, Grover Washington Jr., Chick Corea, Lee Ritenour, and Al Di Meola.- Artist
- Steve Gadd
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